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On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang died. Hu had been general secretary
of the Communist Party from 1982 to 1987, and recognized for his leanings
toward economic reform in China. His death led to demonstrations around China,
some of them in Tiananmen Square. On June 4, 1989, Tiananmen became the focus
of the government's wrath, and in the intersections of the broad streets around
the plaza, the government cracked down brutally. Since then, it has been a
government tradition to start cracking down on protesters, critics, and
dissidents before April 15, and this year is no different. China watchers say
the strictures have already begun with warnings to some and detentions for
others. I checked with foreign journalists over the weekend, and they say
they're aware of the crackdowns, but are not feeling any heat themselves. Yet.

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On Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists expressed its
concerns over the press freedom climate in Iraqi Kurdistan at a press
conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. where we launched our
special report, "Mountain
of impunity looms over Kurdistan journalists." You can watch a video of the
press conference here.

Here is a cut and paste email
message sent to staffers at The News,
in Islamabad. We have their explicit permission to use it. Actually, they
requested that we use it, in the hope that publicizing it will somehow protect
them.

It's not the first time, and it likely won't be the last: Bangladesh's
International Crimes Tribunal has demonstrated little tolerance for criticism
of its activities. Last week, the tribunal launched contempt of court
proceedings against Dhaka-based British journalist David Bergman for his blog
posts on the court.

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Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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More
than seven years after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the prominent Novaya Gazeta journalist, a jury is
hearing the case against five defendants in the killing. The suspects were
first announced in 2011, but proceedings did not begin until July 2013, amid controversy. Three of the current defendants
were earlier acquitted of Politkovskaya's murder in a 2009 trial.

In Pakistan, reporting on the
military intelligence services or insurgent groups or machinations within
political parties is the normal grist for the media mill. A lot of the coverage
relies on reporters with inside sources. The sources use the media as a
battleground for their infighting, relying on sympathetic reporters to put
forward their positions. It keeps the wildly popular TV talk show hosts
occupied and tends to fill the inside pages of newspapers, if not always the
front pages. It's not a problem unique to Pakistan, but the country's media have
taken it to a very high level.

This month, Indians are voting in the largest election in
history. It's an exciting exercise in democracy, but it comes against a grim
backdrop: censorship in the country is on the rise, according to a quarterly
report by the South Asian media watchdog, The
Hoot.

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Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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At the
end of last month, an evacuation order declared during
the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant power plant meltdown was lifted for residents
of a small town in Fukushima Prefecture, the first time an area so close to the
site was declared suitable for habitation. Yet, three years after Earthquake Tōhoku killed 15,000 people and triggered
the nuclear accident, journalists seeking to investigate the disaster face
sustained risks, according to CPJ research.

Dinh
Dang Dinh, a former Vietnamese schoolteacher and blogger, died on April 3
from cancer of the stomach. Near death, he had been released from his six-year
prison sentence on March 21, and allowed to return home to die in Dak Nong
province in Vietnam's Central Highlands. His crime, to which he had pled not
guilty, had been to blog about corruption and environmental issues. He was found guilty under Article 88-1 (c) of
the Criminal Code for "conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam."

A few days after our CPJ delegation met with Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif and secured commitments to combat threats to journalists in
Pakistan, I sat down with reporters from the country's most restive regions, who
described in detail the conditions in which they work.

"Do not forget the genocide," said the voice of a state
broadcast announcer in Kigali crackling through a cheap car radio, referring to
the organized slaughter 20 years ago of more than 10 percent of the population.
"We are all one now," he said, speaking in Rwanda's common language of
Kinyarwanda, and meaning that Rwandans no longer identify themselves as being
either Hutu or Tutsi.

Morocco's
inclination for wielding terrorism accusations against journalists and news
outlets who report on extremist groups has extended to Spain, where authorities
are investigating El País newspaper
and one of its journalists at the behest of the Moroccan government.

The disappearance and murder in Veracruz from February 5 through 11
of local journalist Gregorio
Jiménez de la Cruz remains mired in controversy.

In mid February, after Jiménez's murder, a group of
journalists traveled to Veracruz and investigated the authorities' response to the
journalist's killing. On March 19, the group, called Misión de Observación, published the
findings of its unprecedented investigation in a report called "Gregorio:
Asesinado por informar" (Gregorio: Murdered for Reporting). Their report documented
Jiménez's disappearance and murder, the state's ineffective response, and the less-than-supportive
working conditions of his newspapers in southern Veracruz.